1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to an apparatus for sensing or reading information on the front and back surfaces of documents.
2. Description of the Prior Art apparatus, when it is desired to read information existing on both the front and back surfaces of an original document sheet, the apparatus is ordinarily operated first to read the information existing on one surface of the original sheet and second to read the information existing on the opposite surface thereof. It is therefore necessary to reverse the original document after the completion of the first reading operation and before the commencement of the second reading operation Generally, such reversing of the original document is manually made by the operator. Alternatively, the apparatus may be provided with a mechanism for automatically reversing the original document to eliminate the operator's manual operation. However, the provision of such a mechanism results in an increase in cost and decrease in reliability of the apparatus.
An improved apparatus is also known in which a pair of image pickup sensors are provided to be disposed facing respectively the front and back surfaces of the original sheet so that the information existing on both surfaces of the original sheet can be simultaneously read by the apparatus. However, such an apparatus also leads to the problem of high cost and low reliability.